Double Dragon
by robfi6801
Summary: Double Dragon is my OC with the classic 'experimented on' individual. The first part is an autobio approach to introduce the character. Most other characters are not owned by me.
1. Chapter 1

Present Day Interview /Autobio (Spoiler)

My friends nicknamed me Double Dragon because I had nightmarish visions of dragons and have two brains. I wasn't supposed to have two brains, but that's life. My real name is Peter-Paul Duo.

When I was a child I was regarded as developmentally handi-capped. It took me longer to learn how to communicate with other people than it does most folks. I had difficulties learning to read, write and speak. Not to mention the difficulty of learning to walk and move in general. With two brains the fight to control a single body is a 24/7 battle.

I sometimes "lock-up" or hesitate on issues due to the difficulty of deciding what do given two brains. Inaction is the result when the brains don't agree on a course of action. What looks like inaction is actually an internal power struggle between brains. Whichever brain is stronger at the time wins. When the brains do agree what to do, I can act quite powerfully. A surprising portion of the time the goal of what to do is consistent for both brains, so I can get by in life.

I had the great fortune of meeting someone called professorX early in life. He was an elderly gentleman of considerable power.

ProfessorX told me I was both Jean Grey's and Wolverine's nephew according to the genetics study done by Dr. McCoy. But I'm not sure I believe him. I think he just told me that to make me feel like part of a family again. I don't know where I'm from originally and I think the professor wasn't able to find out either. I was referred to the professor by foster parents living in Canada after a nasty fist-fight with another child.

I told ProfessorX about my dreams or rather nightmares. He said not to worry, they were just dreams. The nightmares involved me being a two- headed dragon fighting a bird made out of fire. It was a horrific battle that consumed the Earth. I always got toasted by the bird in the end, and the bird went on to consume the entire planet. Then the dream ends. The professor said it wasn't uncommon for telepaths to have vivid dreams.

My earliest memories are of living in an underground complex with my mom. Later I learned it was a facility for developing inhuman weapons. One day when I was quite young my mom disappeared, I never saw her again. They had me working as cleaning staff in addition to my training. According to ProfessorX I am one of the most endowed people he has ever met. Endowed, but not that powerful. Most mutants have a single mutation and sometimes a secondary one. I happen to have a handful because they were designer made.

By eves-dropping carefully on conversations at the weapons facility I learned I was supposed to be a counter-agent to something called Weapon 11. They wanted something that could match Weapon 11's capabilities. I also learned that I was "failed" product. Deemed not useful due to the insanity of having two brains to deal with, also regarded as having low intelligence and poor motor skills. My "weapons systems" were all substandard. I only had 1" claws between the fingers. Not useful for dealing lethal blows. Super-healing took too long. Laser vision didn't work at all, and I ended up with mostly ordinary eyesight. Being able to teleport barely worked, requiring a substantial amount of concentration. I did have a bonus of some super-speed capability which the researchers didn't understand how it arose, it was unintended. Even though a failed product, I was used for a while as an experimental object for something called process refinement before being put to use as child labour. I had a high-strength metal alloy bonded to my skeleton, but it wasn't adamantium. It was something called orange-steel. They wanted to test the process without wasting adamantium or a more successful weapon on it. Telepathy and tele-kinesis was deemed non-working. Telepathy actually worked but I managed to hide the fact.

One day I overheard that the project was ending. I was to be destroyed along with a number of other weapons "materials". There was a huge fight among lab workers when it was announced that all weapons materials, with no exceptions, were to be destroyed. That meant that living, breathing individuals were going to be killed. I was lucky in that being part of the labour force I managed to befriend a lab worker or two. I persuaded the lab worker not to give me a lethal injection at the project end date, but rather to lightly sedate me. I awoke in the incinerator room, which was piled with dead bodies. But there was no-one around at the time, so I was able to escape the room easily. They hadn't bothered to place a guard on a room full of dead bodies. I eventually found my way to the surface. Mostly by climbing air-ducts, it was about seven or eight stories underground underneath a railway factory. The railway factory made a great cover for a weapons research program. But I think it wasn't too well thought out about what would happen if weapons escaped. It was obviously an older facility which had been retrofitted. I was able to further escape by hiding on a nearby train. I don't know if anyone else made it out. How I ended up in Canada is a bit of a mystery, but I can remember travelling on a plane at one point during my escape. I spoke only a few words of something resembling "Chinese" and there was Asian writing on the walls of the complex where I was housed. I was only about four years old when I escaped. One thing I noticed which was strange was that while writing in the complex had been Asian, writing above ground in the railway factory and elsewhere was Germanic. It's possible the factory was located in an eastern European country. One speculation is that it was a rogue operation not sanctioned by a government. A company of some kind setup to produce and sell weapons.

Dreams

One night when I was a teenager, the dream changed. I managed to swallow the fire bird whole and keep it from destroying the Earth. But then I consumed all the life of the Earth in the process, and everything becomes dark, cold, and empty. Then the dream ends. My nightmare, if the fire-bird survives it destroys the Earth, if I survive the Earth dies a cold death.

Mom and Me

"mom" was the one responsible for looking after my general needs when I was an infant. My mom disappeared when I was so young that I can barely remember anything at all about her. She was thin, petite and had brown hair. Nobody knows what happened to her, not even the people running the facility. One day she just disappeared. It's rumoured that she was eaten by one of the animal weapons they had housed at the facility, but there was no evidence to back up that theory. She was responsible for cleaning out several of the cages. I slept beside my mom in the warehouse area on a lower shelf next to some pipes. I was hid from sight under burlap bags during the day while my mom worked.

Cleaning House

Once I was about three years old, one of the facility managers came up with a way that I could earn my keep. First they got me involved in simple cleaning tasks, later more sophisticated things.

It wasn't a hard job. After a little bit of coxing I was able to follow what the manager meant. At the end of the work shift, sweep the floors then take the trash to the trash room. Nobody thought to look after me really, outside of my use as an experimental tool. Nobody fed me, and I took to eating garbage. You can imagine what the garbage at a weapons facility was like.

Escape

I owe my escape to a lab worker who is probably deceased now. He gave me the means to flee the facility. A meager amount of money and an airline ticket to a place called Canada. I was supposed to try and meet someone called James Howlett. But I never got that far. The lab worker gave me information on the location of the Howlett Estate.

Seeing the "outside" world for the first time was quite an experience. I'd spent all my days in an underground facility where there was no real concept of outside. Day and night was determined by a light-switch which was switched off for some shifts to conserve power and on for other shifts.

The train was heading west in Europe.

I took an airplane from somewhere in Europe to Canada. I wanted to get as far away from the facility as I could. However when I got to Canada I was stopped and picked up by social workers at the airport, it having been discovered that a four year old was travelling without parents. I think now it was the company that tipped off social services.

From the perspective of the organization running the facility, if they found out about my escape, there were good chances they would leave me alone to avoid a political scandal and other consequences. Any apprehension of self would come covertly and secretly. It could cause a lot of problems starting a large scale operation to track down and capture an escaped weapon. After all, from their perspective what could I do ? My capabilities were rated as pretty limited. It's not as if I was going to laser people with laser vision. I had some combat training but nothing a regular G.I. couldn't handle. I looked a little different, but not far outside of the ordinary. I wasn't a prized possession of the company, only material scheduled to be destroyed misplaced at some point. As an escapee I would be a low priority to recover.


	2. Introductions

Introductions

Scene: automobile pulling through the iron gates of the entrance to the old part of the mansion.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't his fault and now his foster parents were dumping him on someone else's lap. Peter-Paul pondered what was going to happen to himself now. First they had taken the train. Peter-Paul didn't mind the train, it reminded him of escaping and freedom. The drive to the school seemed to take forever however. Nobody said anything during the trip.

"ProfessorX: The child is here with guardians at the old entrance professor." Storm tapped her com badge. Storm liked to greet new students at the school in person. As head of the school she rarely had time to do so, but today she had the time. It was summer exam time. She had been waiting for several minutes at the door as the child's guardians had cell-phoned to notify her they would be arriving in minutes. She thought it was a sad situation in a way. The guardians no longer wanted to look after the child who was just about five years old, after discovering he was inhuman. He'd gotten into a fist fight and showed some nasty claws. They sought to find a better placement for him. It was their fear that they wouldn't be able to control him.

As the school's medical facilities were among the best for determining the needs of special individuals, the guardians decided to have him evaluated at the school.

At the rear of the original mansion was a newer, modern looking glass and concrete five story expansion. The modern expansion included a new main entrance on the side opposite the old one. The expansion was about five times the size of the original building. The exterior looked somewhat like a giant box. Not that appealing, but it made a good backdrop to the old mansion. The school had grown over the years to house more folks. That included ordinary people who dared to mingle with other extraordinary people. A corner stone on the new building read "LG construction". (It was a joke, standing for Lensherr-Grey). The building extension was rumoured to have been constructed in a single day. Although it looked like an ordinary modern glass building, it wasn't so ordinary if one knew the details.

"And what is your name ?" Ororo asked. Storm already knew the child's name but it was only polite to ask since he'd never met her before.

"Peter and Paul". Peter-Paul responded.

"You mean Peter-Paul ?" Storm inquisend.

"Yes." Peter-Paul said. He learned that people wouldn't understand the distinction. Rather than argue a point, he simple agreed.

"Well they call me Ororo." Storm stated.

"Ororo: Please bring the child to my office." ProfessorX requested. ProfessorX being somewhat older had relinquished control of the school to Storm a few years ago when they added the glass part. But he was still involved in running the school, it something he just couldn't completely retire from.

Peter-Paul followed Storm down the hall to the professor's office. He looked about, taking in the beautiful surroundings.

"Hi professor. This is Peter-Paul." Storm announced to the professor as she closed the door to the office behind her. She gently nudged Peter-Paul forward towards the professor. "He likes to be called Peter-Paul." Storm informed the professor.

"Hello Peter-Paul, my name is Charles". The professor greeted him. The professor noted something strange about Peter-Paul right away. His mind was difficult to read. Not that he was blocking telepathy, but that somehow the child's thoughts were confused and out-of-sync. There was almost an echo to his thoughts. He wondered if the child had a head injury.

"What about the fist fight ?" The professor asked. "What was that about ?" The professor wasn't really concerned about the fight, but was using the topic to assess the child's intellectual capacities. He wanted to see language skills in operation, the ability to respond to questions, the capacity to understand language in general.

Peter-Paul's face turned red for a moment. "He killed my friend with drugs." Peter-Paul replied. "He deserved what he got."

ProfessorX was slightly surprised by Peter-Paul's directness. He could understand the fight. It was all in the information social services had sent them. Well, Peter-Paul didn't seem to lack in skill for his age. After talking to Peter-Paul for a few more minutes the professor concluded that Peter-Paul's language skills were about average, if not better. It seems the foster parents had done a good job of improving Peter-Paul's language. When he'd been found he only spoke six different words of Mandarin Chinese.

"Well Peter-Paul, we would like to see those claws of yours in more detail. Would it be okay if we used a special machine ?". The professor asked.

"I can't make them come out." Peter stated somewhat worried. He didn't like the fact that people knew about his claws now. His modus operandi was to keep everything secret. It came from the atmosphere of secrecy that he grew up in.

"Don't worry, they don't need to be showing." The professor smiled. He wanted to know the extent of Peter-Paul's mutations. With claws the professor expected Peter-Paul was somewhat feral. They'd had lots of experience dealing with feral individuals in the past. With a little bit of training Peter-Paul could likely lead an ordinary life.

After talking to Peter-Paul for a few minutes the professor noted that Peter-Paul had some difficulty talking. He seemed to talk in bursts. The professor guessed Peter-Paul was partially mute.

"Hank: Could you please take Peter-Paul to the imaging room for a body scan ?" The professor tapped his com badge. Ordinarily Jean would do the analysis, but the professor thought Peter-Paul might be more comfortable around the beast. Besides, Jean was busy with classes at the moment.


	3. Chapter 3 Bad News

Bad News Good News

"Professor: You're not going to like the results." Hank tapped his com badge. Hank sounded worried. "You should come down to the meeting room as soon as possible."

A few minutes later at the meeting room.

"Look at this." Hank pointed to the body scan displayed on the big screen. He's been experimented on." There was no way the metallized skeleton was a natural mutation. "It's not adamantium this time, it's orange-steel. Orange-steel is nowhere near as durable as adamantium, why use it ?"

The professor knew why Hank was worried. ProfessorX: "We've seen this level of experimentation before. Years ago on Logan and later on X23. It smells like a weapons program result. Let's get a more detailed analysis shall we. Hank, can you do a genetic study ?"

ProfessorX: "All the weapons programs were shut down years ago. This could represent something new."

"And this, this is just amazing." Hank pointed and enlarged the display of part of the screen.

"Ah, I see why now his thoughts echo." The professor remarked. "Two brains."

"How would you be able to function that way ?" Jean asked as she walked into the room.

"I think we should try and find out more about this child." The professor remarked. "I'm leaving you and Hank in charge in this case."

Two days later, meeting room.

"His genetics are most similar to Jean's and Logan's compared to what we've got in the database, but he' not a direct descendant. He's their nephew effectively." Hank concluded. "Given that he's related to Jean, he may have some telepathic or telekinetic abilities."

Jean spoke: "I don't sense that Peter-Paul has any telepathy. But get this professor, he's told me he has fearsome nightmares about dragons and the phoenix and widespread destruction everywhere. Sound familiar ?" Jean asked. "In his nightmares he dies, burned to a crisp by the phoenix. Why would he have nightmares like that professor, there's no evidence that he's telepathic ?"

ProfessorX: "He probably isn't old enough yet for telepathy to have developed, but it's something we should watch out for."


	4. Chapter 4 Just Visiting

Just Visiting

One of the tasks that Jean undertook as a school-teacher was some in-home monitoring / training of telepathic students. She had been monitoring Peter-Paul every couple of months with a short in home visit as the professor had requested. Jean didn't see the need to monitor Peter-Paul because she couldn't sense that he was telepathic and he was just too young for that ability to appear.

Jean's last visit with Peter didn't go well. She'd decided to tell him a little bit about telepathy and then asked if she could read his mind. At first he agreed to it. So then Jean placed her hands close around Peter's head and began concentrating on reading his mind. Peter could feel Jean's presence in his mind then asked her to stop. She said 'I only need a moment more, I know it feels a bit funny, but I'm not going to hurt you.' Then Peter popped Jean one on the nose and said "stop right now." He didn't like the sensation of someone reading his thoughts at all. After that aunt Jean didn't visit anymore. She concluded Peter didn't have any telepathic ability; They thought Peter might be a little feral and he seemed to have a short attention span.


	5. Chapter 5 Sarah Seer

Sarah Seer

Sarah Seer is a mutant who was gifted with extraordinary vision. She seemed to be able to locate things by eyesight that others couldn't find. She could see into the x-ray spectrum; far more colors than a normal person and her ability to pick out objects in low contrast was phenomenal. She won graphic puzzle solving games all the time. She was also somewhat of an artist. Practising painting skills with psychedelic colors was one of her favorite pastimes. Some of her artwork could only be truly appreciated with the use of special googles.

Today was an unlucky day for her.

An older student had her pinned to the ground: "So you think you saw something do you ?" The male adversary yelled at her sitting on-top of her. He had finally managed to isolate his quarry after two days of waiting patiently for just the right time. They were several hundred yards from any other students, near the edge of a small forested area. "Well, see this then!". He pulled out a magnifying glass and held it over her eyes, and adjusted it so the sun focused on her eyes. The magnified sunlight began burning through her eyelids into her eye. She tried to scream for help at first, but he'd covered her mouth. He'd come prepared in advance.

Peter-Paul had been the first to reach her. The other students jut saw a blur racing towards the girl, then heard her screaming as Peter-Paul reached her position. For a moment students thought that Peter-Paul had attacked her, until they saw the older student rolling away. Her cries of pain became audible as Peter-Paul knocked the older student off her with good shove off to the side. The older student disappeared with a "puff" after rolling several times. A teleporter.

Peter-Paul then picked up Sarah and rushed her towards the school as fast as he could. "Strange" Peter-Paul thought. There was already a medic racing towards their position. The sirens of an approaching ambulance could be heard. Several older students ran to assist.

"Look at her eyes." Someone said crying. "She used to have beautiful purple eyes." The eyes were burnt-black sockets. As fast as help had arrived, it wasn't fast enough.

Later in the day during a counselling session a number of students were sitting in a circular arrangement in a meeting room. ProfessorX was busy trying to locate the attacker using Cerebra.

Peter-Paul: "I heard her scream in my mind. That's why I ran to help her, before anybody else knew what was going on."

Jean: "We all did Peter-Paul. All the telepaths. You might just have saved her life with your fast action. We didn't know that Sarah had some telepathic ability to scream like that and it looks like you're starting to develop your own." "Sarah may have lost her eyesight gift, but activated her telepathy."

ProfessorX set up an interview with QuickSilver not because of Peter-Paul's apparent telepathic ability, but because of the speed at which he responded. Peter-Paul had demonstrated exceptional speed in reaching Sarah. He covered about the length of three foot-ball fields in a matter of seconds, far faster than humanly possible.

After interview with QuickSilver

Pietro to the Professor: "He burned his shoes out. He qualifies as super-speed enough to require special equipment." But Peter-Paul and I haven't been able to trigger his super-speed again, so I don't really know how fast he is. He's probably one of the slowest super-speed known mutants. Just looking at the amount of distance covered and the time required to cover that distance. He's demonstrated innate knowledge of super-speed, though."

ProfessorX: "Sarah was witness to something that wasn't supposed to be seen." The sense we all got from the attack was one of extreme rage at being revealed. Apparently Sarah saw something and reported him to the police a day or two ago. I haven't been able to locate the teleporter. He must have teleported to a shielded location somewhere."


	6. Chapter 6 Cerebra Blows

Cerebra Blows

Peter-Paul had graduated to a new level of training and education. Peter-Paul was thirteen years old today, and professor thought he could maybe make an attempt to use mini-Cerebra. The professor figured getting the child used to brain accelerators at an early age would be prudent. He rated Peter-Paul as potentially one of the best telepaths around. Nowhere near as strong as the professor or Jean, but he seemed to have a more refined and finer tuned ability.

Cerebra had changed over the years. Originally kept super-secret by the professor, Cerebra had lost some of it's secrecy as national organizations learned how to replicate devices similar to Cerebro in function if not form. There was no point in keeping super-secret what others could easily replicate. There were dozens of Cerebro similar devices on the planet at this point in time. The tool of telepathy had been made available to a handful of non-telepaths in government organizations. Back at the school there were now a set of five locked "classrooms" in the glass box (the new part of the school) each one about a seven foot spherical room with a Cerebra helmet in it. Dubbed mini-Cerebra it gave telepathic people the chance to gain experience with Cerebra in a safe manner. It worked like Cerebra except at lower power levels and it was easier to control. Given a couple of more decades, the telephone would be completely obsolete as portable telepathy devices arose. There were five rooms to allow up to five telepaths to work in tandem. This allowed group telepathy. Cerebra was still by far the best most powerful device on the planet.

Hank looked at the smoking control board: "ProfessorX thought it might be a good idea to introduce Peter-Paul to mini-Cerebra. He said he should have the potential to make good use of Cerebra one day. The mini-Cerebra / Cerebra is a solitary machine she was never meant to be used by two people at the same time. And now it's a wreck. It just wasn't meant to handle two telepathic vectors at once."

Jean snickered : "I told the professor Peter's not telepathic, but the professor doesn't agree with me.".

The professor was careful about who was exposed to Cerebra. There were only a handful of telepaths who had the mind necessary to pilot Cerebra. To most other individuals with some telepathic abilities Cerebra was useless.

"It looks like Cerebra is due for another upgrade" professor commented.


	7. Chapter 7 The Easter-Egg Hunt

The Easter-Egg Hunt

The Easter-Egg Hunt game was a game played at the school for the gifted, conceived to hone the telepathic abilities of telepaths. At secret locations around the campus "Easter-Eggs" were hidden. During an Easter-Egg hunt the telepaths were supposed to uncover the easter-eggs. The Easter-Eggs contained various amount of what were deemed semi-secret information. For instance one easter-egg contained the location of the keys to one of the school automobiles, allowing use of the automobile for a time. Easter-eggs could be found by skillful use of the mini-Cerebra. The Easter-Egg was egg shaped and resonated at telepathic signals. Along with Easter-Eggs were "rotten eggs". Rotten eggs resonated slightly differently than good ones. If the telepath picked a rotten egg instead of a good one it contained some chore that had to be done around campus.


End file.
